HC Deb 03 July 1972 vol 840 cc205-14

11.55 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is there any way of protecting the rights of hon. Members? The order which the House has considered concerned an important Bill with 54 Clauses and seven Schedules, and only three Ulster Members had a chance to take part in the debate. The redundancy of many members of the electricity board in Northern Ireland—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)

Order. Is the hon. Member aware that he had plenty of opportunity of speaking earlier in the debate and that he is now taking the time of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle), who has secured the Adjournment debate?

11.56 p.m.

Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)

I am grateful for being able to bring the attention of the House to the matter I wish to raise in the Adjournment debate. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development for being present to answer what I have to ask him.

I find myself in some difficulty because I strongly support the Bournemouth football team, and the matter I wish to raise in the debate concerns the extension of its football ground, which I hope it will have, although not at its present site.

The proposed development of the Bournemouth football ground is causing great anxiety to many of my constituents living in the vicinity. The matter also raises wider issues of general public importance.

I shall begin by sketching briefly what I might call the broad historical background to the problem. A century ago, and indeed even less, Bournemouth barely existed. Then, with the Victorian discovery of the delights of the seaside, it became almost overnight a boom town. It grew rapidly into one of the country's largest resorts, and in my view one of its most beautiful, pleasant and civilised. So it remains to this day, though it is now much more than a seaside resort.

With a growing population and the growing popularity of association football, there naturally came a football club and ground. It was built on what was then the edge of the town, on land leased from what is known as the Cooper Dean estate, in the King's Park area.

At the time that was a perfectly sensible arrangement. But the town went on growing, and the ground was overtaken by development. This development took the form of good residential property of the kind which will be familiar to anyone who knows Bournemouth. We now have a football ground where no one would dream of putting it if we were starting from scratch—namely, in the middle of what is otherwise a quiet residential area.

What is proposed is a major new development on this site, to turn the ground into a sports and social centre which would be in use seven days a week. Some idea of its scale can be gained from the fact that the club apparently expects to spend about £1 million over five years. It is intended to double the crowdcapacity from some 20,000 to 40,000 or even 50,000, among other things by the construction of a new stand reaching to a height of no less than 90 feet. The facilities will include 12 squash courts, a large training hall, sauna baths and a restaurant.

All this already has outline planning permission from the Bournemouth Council, as the planning authority, and there is every reason to suppose that detailed planning permission will soon be forthcoming and that development substantially along these lines will then go ahead. My constituents and I believe that it should not be allowed to do so.

Before I set out my objections in more detail, let me first make clear some of the things which are not at issue, because I suspect that there may be some misunderstanding locally and even among some of the other Ministers in my right hon. Friend's Department. It is not an objection to football. Many of those who have written to me protesting most strongly about the proposals are themselves season ticket holders. The club is rightly a source of considerable local patriotism and pride. I need hardly say that it has an enterprising management and that it has in Ted MacDougall a person widely held to be one of the best goal scorers in the country. Last season, the club narrowly missed promotion. My constituents wish it well, and so do I.

This is not an objection, therefore, to the football ground as it stands or to its reasonable improvement as a conventional football ground. Naturally, the fortnightly home matches cause my constituents some inconvenience, but they have lived with it for a long time and are quite prepared to go on putting up with it. Nor is it an objection to the idea of a general sports, social and entertainments centre. On the contrary, I fully share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and of Dr. Bannister and the Sports Council for more developments of this kind. We can all agree in principle on the desirability of making fuller use of what is a much under-used asset represented by many professional football grounds. The issue is none of these things; it is whether this particular development should be allowed at this particular site.

As I said, this is basically a quiet residential area. It is openly acknowledged that the investment contemplated can be justified only by fostering intensive use of the facilities, day in and day out, and there is talk of special events designed for capacity crowds. In my view, all this amounts to a major change of usage and one which is wholly inappropriate to the neighbourhood. It must substantially destroy its existing character, causing considerable distress and no doubt considerable financial loss by driving down property values for those who now live there.

Mr. Denis Howell (Birmingham, Small Heath)

I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman about the football ground, which I know well. I refereed there many times and have visited it since. I cannot think of a site with more space around it capable of being turned into a seven-days-a-week sports centre. But if the hon. Gentleman is right in what he is saying—that every football ground in this country should be removed from residential areas—the cost of doing so would be astronomic. It would also remove immediately from the sporting public the opportunity of supporting sport on their own ground. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate the extent of the case he is making and the impossibility in economic terms of carrying it out?

Mr. Cordle

I appreciate that point but I believe that in respect of the Bournemouth ground this matter can be dealt with much more satisfactorily by moving the site only three-quarters of a mile to a mile away, rather than that it should be used for a development which could cause so much disturbance to this largely residential area.

Mr. Howell

Who will pay?

Mr. Cordle

It can well be undertaken by selling the present site. A new site comparable to the present site could be provided in another area. However, the case will, I hope, become clearer to the hon. Gentleman as I go on.

Even though still more existing open space is to be lost to parking space, parking provision will be totally inadequate for larger crowds and the local residents will undoubtedly face increasingly frequent difficulties in gaining access to their own homes. General parking congestion, already serious on match days, will grow still further and be exacerbated by other planned changes in the road system.

There will be increasing nuisance from noise and litter, and increasingly frequent problems from the kind of minority hooliganism about which we all know, and which already brings, on match days, the usual crop of broken windows, damaged gates and fences, personal abuse, and fights between rival gangs. There are other issues that I could mention, but they are subsidiary.

There is the question whether the council as a whole has been properly informed in detail of the representations of my constituents. My constituents believe that it has not, and it appears that the corporation's solicitor is not prepared to dispute that. There is the question whether the council exercised its powers responsibly. It is acknowledged that it made its decision on a block plan, with no details of the height or elevation of the proposed stand. There is the question whether, whatever use is made of the ground, a stand that is 90 feet high should be allowed to be built within a few feet of people's garden fences.

I rest my case, however, principally on the main issue of the general nature of this development in this place. If it were considered as a completely new project—which is what it amounts to—I do not believe that anyone in his right mind would agree to it. It cannot be said that there is no alternative. Less than one mile away, in Castle Lane, on land owned by the same landlord, there is suitable open ground, near commercial and not residential development, which is already taking place—including a large Woolcostore. This site would allow ample parking space and is well served by roads from all over the region. In view of the amount of money involved in the present scheme it can hardly be said that the club is too poor to contemplate such a move.

In view of the factors that I have mentioned I believe that the Secretary of State should intervene in this matter and insist on a full public inquiry before anything further is allowed to happen.

We hear much talk today about protecting and improving our environment. That is more than a matter of great sewerage schemes and measures against pollution; if it means anything it also means taking proper account of the environment and the quality of life of relatively small groups of people like my constituents and the neighbourhoods in which they live. That is what I want to see in this case, and I hope for the support of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State.

12.8 a.m.

Mr. Denis Howell (Birmingham, Small Heath)

I intervene only for a few moments, because I know that the Minister wants his half of the game in which to reply. I hope that he does not feel that this case needs to be called in for a special inquiry; indeed, it is pre-emin- ently one that should be settled locally by the people who know the area—local authority members and public representaives.

I commend what the Bournemouth Football Club is trying to do. I must declare an interest, because as Minister for six years I tried to get other clubs to do likewise. I am glad that my successor, the present Minister for Sport, is following the same policy. It makes a nonsense to have football grounds which are used once in 14 days. It is economically impossible to conduct a football club on that basis, and to the extent that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) properly and generously paid tribute to his football club, he will surely want to see it succeed economically. It cannot succeed economically if it has the dead hand of economics hanging over it in this way.

I understand that Bournemouth Football Club is the first club to come forward with specific proposals to erect squash courts, and so on, and to turn its ground into a sports facility for the young people of the area. These facilities are needed to help curb the hooliganism about which the hon. Member rightly spoke. I do not believe that his constituents and the local residents realise the healthy sporting nature of the facilities that are proposed. If they did they would not object so strongly as they appear to be objecting at present.

Every club would be open to the same sort of argument if the Minister, in principle, decided to call in this case. I hope, therefore, that he will agree that the right course to adopt is to allow the Bournemouth City Council to carry out that policy which the Sports Council wishes to be carried out, and to allow every-day facilities for the local population, which can do nothing but good in the interests of leisure and the proper use of recreational facilities.

12.10 a.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page)

I, too, must declare an interest in that I lived in Bournemouth for many years and I know the ground there and the area around it pretty well.

The subject raised tonight by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) goes to the root of the relationship between central Government and local government in planning matters. Briefly, it is that in general a local planning authority should be at liberty to plan its own district as it sees fit and the Government should intervene in positive planning decisions only if they involve national or regional issues. I apply that general rule to the facts of this case.

Dean Court football ground is in King's Park, a large park area almost all round the ground and containing other sports grounds—a cricket ground, tennis courts, bowling greens and athletic grounds. On the north-west side and stretching out from the north-west side there is a pleasant residential area with large houses in pleasant gardens, and I would think that houses are of some considerable value in that area of Bournemouth.

Dean Park football ground is the home of Bournemouth and Boscombe Football Club and, as I am sure the House knows, Bournemouth, as it is called for short in the Football League, strove to get promotion last year from the Third Division and was only pipped at the post and finally came third in the table. It is a club with a ground of only 24,000 capacity and, of course, if it is striving to get into the Second Division, it looks for a greater capacity for its ground.

The phase of development which is now before the local planning authority is not for as much as my hon. Friend suggested—the 50,000 figure—but for only 30,000. It is to rebuild a stand on the north-east terrace. An outline planning application for the development of the site for greater capacity was submitted to the Bournemouth Corporation earlier this year, and the corporation had then to consider whether this was a substantial departure from the development plan. I cannot quarrel with the corporation's decision that it was not. It was a continuation of recreational use.

Of course, despite that, the Secretary of State could have called it in. It was an outline planning application and at that stage the Secretary of State could have called it in. In fact, it came to our knowledge only after outline permission had been granted.

As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) said, this is a local matter. It is a matter of increasing the capacity of an existing football ground. The phrase used in the application for outline permission and in the following permission was to enlarge the football stadium on an extended site". Outline planning permission was granted on 7th March.

In the Department we received some 40 protests from residents in the neighbourhood, and one might criticise the local planning authority in that perhaps it should not have granted outline permission without having before it all the details of the development, such as the height of the stand, the design of the stand and so on.

In addition to the criticism which we received in the Department, I am informed by the Bournemouth Corporation that there was considerable support and that a petition of 40,000 signatures was raised in support of the scheme. Then the club proceeded to submit detailed plans at the end of May. These were advertised and it was shown to the public that the proposals were to include, within the stand, squash courts, practice rooms, sauna baths, a gymnasium, club room, restaurant and bars. Perhaps the point which hit the public so hard was the fact that the stand was to be 85 feet to 90 feet high. Undoubtedly a stand of this sort will tower above the neighbouring residences. It is not pre-judging the merits of this but only stating the facts if I say that this development will be overpowering in that residential area. It will be obtrusive to the landscape and will undoubtedly cause a loss of value to the residences in that area.

Three of the houses, instead of looking out on to the open spaces of King's Park, will be looking at a 90 feet-high wall at the bottom of their gardens. We cannot hide the fact that the development will have a great impact on the residential area around it. As my hon. Friend said, the increased traffic in the residential area will be significant if this ground is to be used economically—as it ought to be used if this development is undertaken—for seven days a week. All these are local issues, the very issues which a democratically elected council should decide for its own citizens. The Secretary of State does not try to substitute his own ideas of good planning for those of the local planning authority. Frequently in our Department there are occasions on which we think that a local authority is not exercising principles of good planning, but unless a major issue arises out of it, the Secretary of State would be wrong to interfere.

If the local authority threatens something which is what one might call part of our heritage then, of course, the Secretary of State would intervene. However disastrous this development may be for those houses around the ground—these Edwardian or possibly subsequent to first world war houses—they cannot be described, however nice they are as residences, as some part of our heritage the reduction in value of which the Secretary of State ought to prevent. Because of the intrusion into this residential area my hon. Friend was right to call attention to the alternative site in Castle Lane and I am sure that the local planning authority will give this every consideration. It would be to usurp its planning functions if my right hon. Friend were to direct it to take anything like that into particular consideration.

The position is that outline planning permission has been given for an extension of capacity on the site, an extended site, which takes into development a small part of open space. To that extent it may have to come before my right hon. Friend later. This is purely incidental; it is not the basic factor in consideration. The position is that the outline planning permission has been given. The detailed planning application has been submitted but no detailed planning permission has yet been given. The Secretary of State could still revoke the outline planning permission. That exceptional course would give rise to a claim for compensa- tion. The Secretary of State could call in the application and hold an inquiry. The position then would be that my right hon. Friend would have to choose between the amenities of the residential area on the one hand and the extra provision for spectators at the football matches, which are undoubtedly popular, and the provision of the other sporting facilities in the stand, the squash courts and so on, on the other. The choice should not be in the hands of the Secretary of State unless some national issue arises. I cannot think that a national issue arises here. It is for the local planning authority to decide.

I strongly advise my hon. Friend to put to the local council the very substantial arguments which he has adduced, because the Council should decide in this case. Having carefully considered the representations which have been made to us in the light of our general policy my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has come to the conclusion that, although the development would have considerable impact on the locality and some repercussions over a wider area within Bournemouth, which I am sure the local planning authority will take fully into account in applying the best planning principles, there are no regional or national issues involved which would justify our taking the responsibility for dealing with the detailed proposals out of the local planning authority's hands or taking action to revoke the outline planning permission which has been granted.

My hon. Friend has done a good service by raising this matter in the House, and I am sure that the local planning authority will take fully into account what he said.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Twelve o'clock